1. Development Lecture 15 4/5/04

2. Plan  Attachment & bonding  Familiarity--Lorenz  Comfort-- Harlow  Responsiveness to needs- Attachment styles  Cognitive Development  Piaget’s stages

4. Imprinting  Any moving, honking stimulus  Decoys, rubber balls, wooden blocks, striped metal pipe  Critical period ~ within first day...  In humans, attachment is less automatic, mother plays more active role

5. What is attachment?  A strong, innate emotional connection persisting over time and circumstances  Attachment = adaptive  Infant attachment behaviors motivate adult attention  Infants exhibiting attachment behaviors have a higher chance of survival

6. Remember Watson?  Dangers of too much mother love  Treat children like young adults; objectively, not sentimentally; never hug or kiss– shake their hands  Love is conditioned, not instinctive  Hunger need // love  Food – salivation; food + bell – salivation; bell…  Food – good feeling; mother + food– good feeling;  Mother -- love

7. Contact Comfort: A theory of love

8. Harlow  Strength of attachment is independent of feeding…  Love is conditioned, BUT, UR isn’t food, it’s pleasant, tactile stimulation  Monkey experiments  1. Influence of nursing vs. contact comfort  2. Fear response  3. Exploration  4. Separation http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Psy301/Niederhoffer/movies/Development/Harlo w_interview_pt1.mpg

9. Harlow’s Contact Comfort Theory  Harlow’s monkey studies    Surrogate mothers  Wire mesh “mother”  Terrycloth “mother”  Measures of “affection”    Time spent  Preference in time of stress  “Contact” need is important in determining behavior, esp. in bonding http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Psy301/Nieder hoffer/movies/Development/Harlow's_monkeys.mov

10. Monkeys fed by mothers Monkeys fed by cloth mothers

11. Monkeys fed by wire mothers

12. Do infants form attachment to source of food? 1.Ate same amount, gained weight same rate, but: Wire mothered-monkeys didn’t digest milkWire mothered-monkeys didn’t digest milk 2.When frightened ran to cloth mother Regardless of whom provided foodRegardless of whom provided food http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Ps y301/Niederhoffer/movies/Development/Harlow_inte rview_pt3.mpghttp://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Ps y301/Niederhoffer/movies/Development/Harlow_inte rview_pt3.mpg

13. Do infants form attachment to source of food? 3. Open field experiments Cloth: Rushed to cloth monkeys, clutched, rubbedCloth: Rushed to cloth monkeys, clutched, rubbed W/out mother: Froze w/ fear, cried, thumb-sucking, crouchingW/out mother: Froze w/ fear, cried, thumb-sucking, crouching Wire: Same as no motherWire: Same as no mother http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Psy301/Niederhoffer/movies/Development/Harlow_interview_pt2.mpghttp://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/class/Psy301/Niederhoffer/movies/Development/Harlow_interview_pt2.mpg 4. Separation When reunited with cloth, rushed to mother, climbed, clutched tightly playedWhen reunited with cloth, rushed to mother, climbed, clutched tightly played No exploration b/c need for contact comfort =greaterNo exploration b/c need for contact comfort =greater When reunited with wire…When reunited with wire…

14. Future Behavior  Abnormal behavior from wire-mom raised:  Sit and stare like autistic child  Sexually disturbed…  18 females mated voluntarily  18 females involuntarily (held in place)  Of 36, 20 produced infants  Most males never able to mate  Of 20 who produced infants:  5 showed adequate, but awkward behavior  7 Indifferent (failed to nurse)  8 Abusive- extreme physical cruelty  4 killed their babies (bit off fingers and toes)

15. Note!  Of 20, only 5 showed adequate behavior!  Also important: peer contact  Of adequates: all had peer exposure  Of indifferent & abusive, only 3 had peers  Peers are perhaps more important than tactile stimuli for determining later behavior…

16. Human Attachment Styles

17. John Bowlby (1969)  Clear sequence of 3 emotional reactions upon separation (across species)  Protest  Despair  Detachment  Specific emotions & behaviors designed to keep infants near primary caregivers  EVOLUTIONARY SELECTED

18. The Strange Situation Mary Ainsworth, 1978  Parent brings baby to unfamiliar playroom  Parent and stranger come & go (scripted)  Child’s behavior observed in secret  How do they react to separations & reunions?  Explore while “secure base” is there?  Distress upon departure?  Delight upon return?

19. Secure Attachment  About 60% of children in normal conditions  Secure base for exploration  Safe Haven when distressed Avoidant Attachment  About 25% of children  Don’t use parent as secure base  Don’t use parent as safe haven  Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment  About 15% of children  Ineffective secure base (clinging, nervous)  Ineffective safe haven (emotional acting out, suspicious)

20. Mental Models  Secure: Selves as friendly, good-natured, likable;  Others as well-intentioned, reliable & trustworthy  Avoidant: Selves as suspicious, aloof & skeptical;  Others as unreliable, over-eager to commit  Anxious: Selves as misunderstood, unconfident, underappreciated;  Others as Unreliable, unwilling/ unable to commit to permanent relationship

21. Consequences of secure attachment in adulthood  More trusting in relationships  Longer relationships  More sexual satisfaction, esp. with long-term partner  Higher self-esteem and regard for others  Seek social support when under stress  Appropriate self-disclosure style  Positive, optimistic, constructive interactions with others  Better a positive mood self-induction

22. Chemical basis of attachment Oxytocin  Hormone related to affiliative behaviors, including infant-caregiver attachment  Promotes maternal behaviors that help ensure survival of infant  Strengthens social memories

23. Cognitive Development  Children are curious, active, constructive thinkers who want to understand world around them  Children form schemas = mental representations of the world  Assimilation- fit new info into schema  Accomodation- adjust schema to fit new info

24. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

25. Visual Preferences in Newborns  Patterns vs. solids  Drawing of a human face  Preference for complexity vs. adaptation?

26. Newborn Orientation to the Face  Infants shown blank shape, face, or scrambled facial features.  same complexity…  Infants looked more intensely at the actual face.

27. 1. Sensorimotor stage  Understands self as agent of action  Object permanence  Understanding that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen 2. Preoperational stage  Beginning of symbolic thinking-- words  Still egocentric & can’t yet think “operationally”  Imagining logical consequences

28. Testing Conservation  Ability to conserve marks transition from Preoperational to concrete operational stage

29. Piaget’s stages 3. Concrete operational stage  Learn to think about operations  Develop conservation  Based on understanding the operation of reversibility 4. Formal operational stage  Develop abstract reasoning  Hypothetic-deductive reasoning  Ability to form and test hypotheses

30. Sensitivity to Number ? Can Infants Add and Subtract?  “Illustration of addition or subtraction”  Correct vs. incorrect outcome (2-1=2, for example)  Infant looks longer at incorrect outcomes

31. Infants are remarkable…  Adolescence and adulthood bring about fascinating capacities more easily studied…  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY IS ON THE HORIZON